


Two Mothers

by ACR



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACR/pseuds/ACR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Prompt: What if Mama Stilinski actually knew about the Hales back in the day when Stiles and Derek were younger, and Derek used to watch the 4 year old Stiles and they'd play together? And Derek loved Stiles' mom and Stiles' loved Dereks family. Maybe they've suppressed the memories because of the tragedies between their families and now they're both started to remember.<br/>(slightly altered)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Mothers

The first time Derek remembers is in a dream.

He’s fast asleep and it creeps over him. It’s not the first time his dreams have actually been memories. They’re better then the nightmares and images of fire and smoke, long since replaced by his sisters smile and his mothers hair and his father’s laugh. Things that made him ache inside. Things he had tried to suppress about his childhood because they hurt too much.

This memory starts off like so many of them. He’s sitting on the lawn outside his house, under the biggest tree there was. He’s watching his mom where she’s standing in their garden, knee deep in long flowers and looking flustered. She has long black hair pulled into a bun and eyes that look almost lupine by themselves, golden. They hear a car horn honk from the front of the house, and she looks up at Derek. He smiles at her and doesn’t resist the urge to stand up.

Pretty soon a familiar face comes around the corner towards them. She has short brown hair, freckles, and dark brown eyes. Derek remembered thinking they were the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen, like a new moon. She is wearing knee high garden boots and looked ready to work in the dirt, unlike Dereks mom who just looked pathetic. They were friends, this woman and Dereks mom, and she was teaching his mom about gardening. She came over every weekend now, and Derek was used to her.

He puts his fingers in his pockets and shifts, looking, wondering if she had brought what Derek really waited for. She must see him because she laughs, loud and pretty sounding.

“Stiles! Come on!”

The little four year old peeks around the corner of the house and follows his mother across the grass. He’s looking down at his feet like he doesn’t know what to do. Derek stands up then and walks around the garden where his mom and Sophie Stilinski were now talking. He kneels down next to Stiles and reaches up, touching his knappy brown hair.

“Your hair is getting all long.” Derek says, grinning.

Stiles sticks his tongue out at him, but smiles.

Derek scoops the kid up and looks on at their moms talking and laughing, a mixture of sounds. And Derek feels really happy.

And then he was flying awake and nearly choking to death on the feeling.

\--

Stiles doesn’t remember. Because when his mom and Dereks mom were friends, he was too young to remember anything. His dad has finally decided to go through some of the old looking boxes in the basement. Stiles understands immediately that this could be a painful process. The only boxes left after their move to the new house were Stiles’ moms things.

He sits down with his dad and they begin opening the boxes. It’s funny, actually, maybe it aches a bit for them both and he swears he sees tears in his dads eyes a few times, but it’s good for them. And his dad is looking through some old letters that are obviously personal. So Stiles picks up an old photo album. There are some pictures he has seen before, or copies of them backed up on their computer, and a few he hasn’t. He stops on a picture of his mom, hair short and grinning, next to a stunning black haired girl who looked surly. And familiar.

“Dad?” He glances up and his dad was carefully folding up one of the old letters and putting it into the pile of things he wanted to keep.

“Hmm?”

“Who is this in this picture?” Stiles holds it out and taps it.

His dad looks at it and then lets out a huffed laugh, “Emer. She was really good friends with your mom. Great friends, actually. I only met her and her husband once, though. I was always busy when I was in training for the police.”

Stiles stomach jumps, “Do you know if she still lives here?” Stiles had been looking for people that knew his mom for years.

His dad smiles sadly, “She died a few years back in the Hale house fire.”

Stiles jaw drops open, “Emer… Hale.”

His dad nods and grabs the next letter, “Dereks mom.”

\--

Derek doesn’t bring it up, because he doesn’t think Stiles is capable of remembering any of it. He was so young when they knew each other. But the memories for Derek were there. Faint, but there.

He used to babysit Stiles while their moms did things together. Most of the time it was gardening, but when summer became fall and then winter, they spent a lot of time indoors. Truthfully Dereks mom was shit at anything even a little bit motherly, so Sophie Stilinski taught her a lot. Gardening, cooking (Dereks dad usually cooked. His mom burned everything), and knitting. And Derek would follow Stiles around in the woods outside their house and they would play games, hide and seek. Of course Derek had an unfair advantage in finding, but Stiles didn’t need to know that.

Their friendship only lasted a year, but Derek remembered finding Stiles something he looked forward to. When Sophie was diagnosed with cancer, she came over less and less and their interactions faded. He remembered his mom burying herself in her alpha duties, but she seemed genuinely sad about it all. One day Sophie stopped coming at all. Derek never asked his mom why she didn’t visit her in the hospital. She was stubborn, and mostly she was sad.

They went to Sophies funeral. He watched Stiles put a flower on her coffin. He watched his mother and father talk to the Sherriff, which was the first time Derek had ever seen him. He approached Stiles and reached out, touching his shaved head.

“You cut off all your hair,” Derek said. He remembered the last few times he saw Sophie, and her head, bald by then.

Stiles smiled at him, “Like mommy.”

Derek was so sad for him he didn’t even know how to react. But that was the last time he saw little Stiles, after five years when his house burned down, and another six when he came back to Beacon Hills and met someone very different.

None of those memories mattered, not really. There was one memory he suppressed back, something that he wasn’t sure if Stiles needed to know about yet.

\--

Stiles takes a deep breath and goes up the steps to the Hale house. He glances at the charred wood, and thinks he can almost remember a time when that was white paint instead. He knocks on the door and grips the piece of paper he’s been holding the whole way here.

Derek answers solemnly, blinking at him like he doesn’t understand why he’s there. He’s wearing a grey tank top and blue jeans, all of which and his face are covered in ash and soot. Stiles thinks he must have been fixing some things inside. He tries really hard not to think about how good Derek looks dirty.

“We have to talk,” Stiles says. When it becomes clear Derek isn’t going to reply, Stiles holds out the photo of their moms. Derek takes it and looks down at it. He doesn’t look shocked, as Stiles suspected, he probably remembers those times clearly.

“You have a picture of them.” Is all Derek says. Stiles nods.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t-” Derek swallows hard, “I don’t have any pictures of her. They all burned up in the fire.”

“Oh.” Stiles blushes, “You can, um, keep it. Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Derek moves out of the way, and Stiles walks past him. He’s only ever been in here a few times, and it was long ago. Derek has been doing some work on it. It still looks like a place that’s been burned up, but there’s some new furniture and even a TV and a couch, so it doesn’t look so run down. There’s a ladder set up in the kitchen where Derek looks like he’s been patching up the roof.

“Be right back, do whatever.” Derek says. Stiles watches him vanish into the kitchen and goes to the couch to sit down on it. He looks around. There is ash everywhere here, it smells like a lost cause. He doesn’t know why Derek is wasting his time trying to fix it up. It looks like at some point, it was really pretty, though. It has a fireplace and high walls and lots of rooms.

“So, what do you need to talk about?” Derek says when he comes back in. He holds out a diet Dr. Pepper and Stiles tries not to grin. It’s a running pack joke that you can’t give Stiles normal Dr. Pepper or he’ll never stop talking. He takes it and opens it up while Derek sits down next to him.

“Your mom knew my mom,” Stiles says, looking down at the charred floor, “Did you know?”

“Yeah,” Derek sighs, “I had forgotten, until recently. I knew you, too.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I used to babysit you while they were together.”

Stiles laughs nervously and wonders why he never thought about that, “That’s kind of embarrassing.”

“It’s okay, you were really cute.” Dereks head flies up and his cheeks are actually red, “Uh, I mean… For… a five year old.”

Stiles is grinning at how flustered he suddenly was, but decided against picking at the comment. “I think you remember more about my mom than I do, for the record.”

Derek looks at him with sad eyes, “I’m sorry.”

Stiles laughs it off, “It’s okay. Nothing I can do about it anymore.”

Derek rubs his hands together and it’s distracting and Stiles drinks his soda. It’s sweet. Derek turns towards him with furrowed eyebrows.

“There might be something I can do.”

“O-oh?” Stiles sputters.

“Yeah. Do you trust me?”

It’s a weird question. A few months ago the answer would be no, but…

“Yes.”

“Close your eyes.”

“Okay,” Stiles settles back against the couch and tries to understand the pounding in his chest (fear? Something else?). He closes his eyes and breathes deeply. The couch moves like Derek is shifting his weight and then there are thumbs being pressed to Stiles’ temples.

“Derek…” Stiles mutters.

“Stop talking,” Derek says, sounding very close to him, “This is a werewolf thing. I hope it works.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. Suddenly there are warm lips on his, and Dereks scruffy beard scratching his face. It was soft and caught Stiles off guard, but not as much as the images in his head that soon follow.

Stiles is looking down at himself, but younger, maybe five. He has big brown eyes.

“Derek, it’s your turn to find me.” The younger Stiles says. Stiles realizes he’s watching through Dereks eyes.

“Okay,” Derek says. It’s condescending as ever, but young sounding, “Go hide, okay? But go into the house. It’s too cold to be outside, I think. And it looks like it’s about to rain.”

Stiles nods and runs off into the house. In this reality, this past, it looks huge and white and happy. The cloudy sky makes the woods all around look eerie, but there was green sprouting all around. It must have been early spring.

Derek waits for a few minutes, kicking at the leaves on the ground and pacing, before he circles the house and sneaks through the back door. His eyes are darting around, searching for a little kid. He’s stalking through the kitchen quietly, checking under the table, when he hears two voices talking. He stops and walks forward, peeking around to see the living room where two women are sitting in a pile of yarns and knitting. There’s Dereks mom, sitting and poking uselessly with her needles. And there is Stiles’ mom, bald headed and smiling sadly.

“The treatments aren’t working,” Sophie says like it’s just common talk.

“I know,” Emer replies, looking up, “I can smell it on you. Death.”

She sighs, and leans over, fixing the position of one of Emers needles before returning to her own, “They don’t think I’ll last more than a few more months. I’m declining.”

They sit in silence and the black haired women is shaking her head, “You’re such an idiot. Why are you so calm about this!?” The slight growl to her voice makes her so much like Derek that it would be funny if it wasn’t sad.

“Shh,” Sophie sighs, “I am accepting this as my fate. It’s not like I am keen to the idea of leaving my family.”

“Then don’t.” Emer swallows and Sophie raises an eyebrow at her.

“What?”

“I could do it. I could bite you,” Emer lets go of her needles all together and reaches out, touching the other womans hands, “You’re like family to me anyway, so let me do this for you. You will heal. You can become part of our pack. Derek and Stiles can be raised together. Let me do that for you.”

Sophies eyes look so sad, “You know that isn’t my fate.”

There are tears streaming down Emers face, “I could love Stiles like my own son. Derek already loves you like another mom. Can’t we be that? Be family?”

Sophie squeezes Emers hands and stand up, coming over to sit next to her. Emer buries her head in her shoulder and shakes with sobs.

“I was born a human, and I want to die one with respect and dignity. I want to let the earth take me, I don’t want to cheat death. It’s my time to go.”

“It’s not fair,” Emer sniffs, “It’s not fair.”

“I know,” Sophie strokes her hair, “It isn’t fair that I have to leave my husband and son alone. It isn’t fair that I have to leave this world. But it’ll make everything better in the end, I believe.”

Derek is backing away from the doorway, turning to leave, and the entire memory fades out.

\--

Derek pulls away and looks down at Stiles, letting go of his face. There are tears streaming down his cheeks, that have been there for a few minutes, and Derek can taste them on his own face too. Stiles blinks his eyes open, looking like a mixture of sad and shocked.

“My mom knew about werewolves.” Stiles says.

Derek swings his legs over and sits down next to Stiles again, “Yeah, she did.”

“She denied the bite,” Stiles wipes his eyes, “Why would she do that? If she hadn’t…”

“She’d be alive,” Derek says, “She’d be pack.”

“Why did she choose to leave me alone?” Stiles chokes out, and it hurts Dereks heart, “I thought… I thought she loved me.”

“She did,” Derek grabs Stiles’ wrist, “She loved you until the very end. That’s why she denied the bite.”

“What?”

Derek sighs, “If she had you wouldn’t have ever been normal. You might have never met Scott. You might have died in the fire.”

Stiles shakes his head and turns, pressing into Derek and making him go rigid for a moment. He quickly melts though, pulling Stiles into him and wrapping his arms around him while he cries. Just like Sophie comforted Emer in this room eleven years ago. And suddenly that fate she was talking about seemed to be falling into place now.


End file.
